Hundreds march in West Bank against killings of Palestinian medics
Hundreds of Palestinian Red Crescent staff marched in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday to protest the killing of medical workers in Gaza over the past 19 months of war.
Gathering in the city's Clock Square, medical personnel, support staff and volunteers wore white and orange vests and waved flags bearing the Red Crescent's emblem.
The demonstration marked World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day, usually observed on May 8, and called for the "protection for medical and humanitarian workers".
In a statement released Monday, the Red Crescent said 48 of their staff members have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank since the war began on October 7, 2023 -- including 30 who "were killed while performing their humanitarian duty wearing the Red Crescent emblem".
Protesters carried symbolic white shrouds bearing the names and pictures of the dead, as well as signs demanding the release of three staff members who have been detained by the Israeli army for over a year.
Some 1,400 humanitarian and medical workers have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war, according to the statement, which added that "dozens of medical personnel working in Gaza... were detained while performing their humanitarian duties."
It highlighted a particularly deadly attack in March in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, when 15 first responders including eight Red Crescent paramedics were killed by the Israeli army.
The first responders were answering distress calls after Israeli air strikes.
The incident drew international condemnation, including concern about possible war crimes from UN human rights commissioner Volker Turk.
An Israeli military investigation, the results of which were published, acknowledged "professional failures" and "violations of orders" during the shooting.
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14 hours ago
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A deadly race for food: Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey day after day
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Each day, Palestinians in Gaza run a deadly gantlet in hopes of getting food. Israeli troops open barrages of gunfire toward crowds crossing military zones to get to the aid, they say, and knife-wielding thieves wait to ambush those who succeed. Palestinians say lawlessness is growing as they are forced into a competition to feed their families. A lucky few manage to secure some packets of lentils, a jar of Nutella or a bag of flour. Many return empty-handed and must attempt the ordeal again the next day. 'This isn't aid. It's humiliation. It's death,' said Jamil Atili, his face shining with sweat as he made his way back last week from a food center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed private contractor. He had suffered a knife cut across his cheek amid the scramble for food and said a contractor guard pepper-sprayed him in the face. Still, he emerged with nothing for his 13 family members. 'I have nothing to feed my children,' he said, nearly crying. 'My heart is broken.' Israel began allowing food into Gaza this past month after cutting it off completely for 10 weeks, though United Nations officials say it is not enough to stave off starvation. Most of the supplies go to GHF, which operates four food distribution points inside Israeli military zones. A trickle of aid goes to the U.N. and humanitarian groups. Both systems are mired in chaos. Daily gunfire by Israeli troops toward crowds on the roads heading to the GHF centers has killed several hundred people and wounded hundreds more in past weeks, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. At the same time, in past weeks, hungry crowds overwhelm most of the U.N.'s truck convoys and strip away the supplies. Israeli troops have opened fire to disperse crowds waiting for trucks near military zones, witnesses say — and on Tuesday, more than 50 people were killed, according to the ministry. The Israeli military says it is investigating. 'I don't see how it can get any worse, because it is already apocalyptic. But somehow it does get worse,' said Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian affairs office. Israel and GHF downplay the violence Israel says it has only fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces along the roads to the GHF food centers. Palestinian witnesses say the troops fire to prevent crowds from moving past a certain point before the centers open or because people leave the road designated by the military. They describe heavy barrages from tanks, snipers, drones and even guns mounted on cranes. Asked how its soldiers control movement, the military told The Associated Press its 'operational conduct ... is accompanied by systematic learning processes.' It said it was looking into safety measures like fences and road signs. GHF says no shootings have taken place in or near its hubs. A spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity under GHF rules, said incidents take place before sites open involving aid-seekers who move 'during prohibited times ... or trying to take a short cut.' They said GHF is trying to improve safety, in part by changing opening times to daylight hours. Israel intends for GHF to replace the U.N.-led aid network in Gaza, contending that Hamas diverts large amounts of aid from it. The U.N. denies the claim. Ducking under fire Thousands of people must walk miles to reach the GHF centers, three of which are in the far south outside the city of Rafah. Palestinians said the danger begins when the crowds enter the Israeli military zone encompassing Rafah. Mohammed Saqer, a father of three who risked the trip multiple times, said that when he went last week, tanks were firing over the heads of the crowds as drone announcements told everyone to move back. It's 'like it was 'Squid Game,'' Saqer said, referring to the dystopian thriller TV series in which contestants risk their lives to win a prize. Just raising your head might mean death, he said. He and others crawled forward, then left the main road. A shot rang out nearby and they ducked, he said. They found a young man on the ground, shot in the back. The others assumed he was dead, but Saqer felt his chest — it was still warm, and he found a pulse. They carried him to a point where a car could pick him up. Saqer said he stood for a moment, traumatized by the scene. Then people shouted that the site had opened. The mad dash Everyone broke into a crazed run, he said. He saw several people wounded on the ground. One man, bleeding from his abdomen, reached out his hand, pleading for help. No one stopped. 'Everyone is just running to get to the aid, to get there first,' Saqer said. Omar al-Hobi described the same scene the four times he went last week. Twice, he returned empty-handed; once, he managed to grab a pack of lentils. On the fourth day, he was determined to secure flour for his three children and pregnant wife. He said he and others inched their way forward under tank fire. He saw several people shot in the legs. One man fell bleeding to the ground, apparently dead, he said. Horrified, al-Hobi froze, unable to move, 'but I remembered I have to feed my children.' He took cover in a greenhouse, then heard the announcement that the center was open and began to run. Avoiding thieves At the center, food boxes are stacked on the ground in an area surrounded by fences and earthen berms. Thousands rush in to grab what they can in a frantic melee. You have to move fast, Saqer said. Once supplies run out, some of those who came too late rob those leaving. He swiftly tore open a box and loaded the contents into a sack — juice, chickpeas, lentils, cheese, beans, flour and cooking oil. Then he took off running. There's only one route in and out of the center. But, knowing thieves waited outside, Saqer clambered over a berm, running the risk of being fired on by Israeli troops. 'It all depends on the soldiers' mood. If they are in a bad mood … they will shoot at me. If not, they will let me be,' he said. Heba Jouda said she saw a group of men beat up a boy of 12 or 13 years old and take his food as she left one of the Rafah centers. Another time, she said, thieves attacked an older man, who hugged his sack, weeping that his children had no food. They sliced his arm with a knife and ran off with the sack. The finish line Al-Hobi said he was trampled in the scramble for boxes. He managed to grab a bag of rice, a packet of macaroni. He snagged flour — but much of it was ruined in the chaos. At his family tent outside Khan Younis, his wife, Anwaar Saleh, said she will ration it all to make it last a week or so. 'We hope he doesn't have to go back. His life is the most important thing,' she said. Al-Hobi remains shaken — both by his brushes with death and the callousness that the race for food has instilled in everyone. 'No one will show you mercy these days. Everybody fends for themselves.' ___ El Deeb reported from Beirut, Keath from Cairo. AP correspondent Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
Israel-Iran conflict: List of key events, June 20, 2025
Here's where things stand on Friday, June 20: Israel said on Friday that it had struck dozens of military targets in Iran overnight, including Tehran's Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research, missile production sites and military facilities in western and central Iran. The Israeli military said it struck surface-to-air missile batteries in western Iran, killing a squad of Iranian soldiers on the move during the operation, including a commander of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the military to intensify attacks on 'symbols of the regime' and 'mechanisms of oppression' in the Iranian capital, Tehran, aiming to destabilise it. Air defence systems were activated in Bushehr in southern Iran, the location of the country's only operating nuclear power plant, according to the Young Journalists Club, cited by state broadcaster IRIB. Iran's IRGC said it had fired its 17th wave of missiles at Israeli military facilities, including the Nevatim and Hatzerim bases. Iran fired missiles at Beersheba in southern Israel, with initial Israeli media reports also pointing to missile impacts in Tel Aviv, the Negev and Haifa. Iran said that the 'precise hits' demonstrated 'our offensive missile power is growing'. The Fars news agency quoted an Iranian military spokesperson as saying Tehran's missile and drone attacks on Friday had used long-range and ultra-heavy missiles against Israeli military sites, defence industries and command and control attack on Tehran's Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research, which it says is involved in Iran's alleged nuclear weapons development, killed a nuclear scientist, according to Israeli media reports. Iranian media reported that an industrial plant involved in the production of carbon fibre in northern Iran was damaged in an attack. Iran's health ministry said a third hospital in Tehran had been struck by Israeli bombs, according to state news agency IRNA. At least five people were injured when Israel hit a five-storey building in Tehran housing a bakery and a hairdresser's, Fars news agency reported. Iranian news outlet Asriran said that a drone attacked an apartment in a residential building in the Iranian capital's central Gisha district. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a US-based human rights organisation that tracks Iran, said that Israeli air attacks have killed 639 people in the country. Israeli authorities had previously said 24 civilians had been killed in Iranian attacks. Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said its teams were providing treatment to 17 people, three in serious condition, after Iran's strikes. Israeli railway officials told local media that, due to the Iranian missile strike on Beersheba, the city's north station was temporarily closed. Afghanistan's agriculture minister said his country was in discussions with Russia to import certain foodstuffs as the conflict between Israel and Iran, one of its largest trading partners, risked cutting off of thousands of people attended anti-Israel protest marches in Tehran, as well as other major Iranian cities, including Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad and Qom. Demonstrators in southern Beirut, Lebanon held a pro-Iran rally after Friday prayers. Thousands of Iraqis gathered for Friday prayers in Baghdad's Sadr City, a suburb with a large Shia population, chanting against the US and Israel amid the attacks on Iran. Pro-Palestinian activists in the UK broke into the Royal Air Force Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire and damaged two President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was wrong to suggest there is no evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon. 'Well, my intelligence community is wrong,' he replied when asked about Gabbard's position. Trump also said that while he 'might' support a ceasefire deal between Israel and Iran, 'Israel's doing well in terms of war, and I think you would say that Iran is doing less well'. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the only way to end the conflict was for Israel to stop its air attacks, warning that 'failure to do so would result in a far more forceful and regrettable response from Iran'. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in St Petersburg that Moscow was sharing ideas with 'our Israeli and Iranian friends' about how to end the bloodshed and said he believed there was a diplomatic solution. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced new Iran-related sanctions aiming to disrupt Tehran's efforts to 'procure the sensitive, dual-use technology, components, and machinery that underpin the regime's ballistic missile, unmanned aerial vehicle, and asymmetric weapons programs'. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said in a phone conversation with Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide that Israel targeting economic facilities in Iran could lead to catastrophic regional and international repercussions. French President Emmanuel Macron said there was 'no justification' for strikes on civilians and on civilian infrastructure in the weeklong conflict, adding that Tehran should show its willingness to return to the negotiating table concerning its nuclear programme. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in comments carried by state news agency TASS that potential use of tactical nuclear weapons by the US in Iran would be a catastrophic development. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran over a phone call, a German government spokesperson said. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said his country was working with Israeli authorities to arrange charter flights for British nationals from Tel Aviv when Ben Gurion International Airport reopens. The United Nations Security Council met at its headquarters in New York to discuss the situation between Iran and Israel. Rafael Grossi, director of the International Agency for Atomic Energy, warned against attacks on nuclear facilities at the meeting, saying a strike on the Bushehr nuclear plant could cause 'radioactive releases with great consequences' beyond Iran's borders. He called for 'maximum restraint'. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the meeting that expansion of the Israel-Iran conflict could 'ignite a fire no one can control', calling on both sides to 'give peace a chance'. Iran's UN ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani urged the Security Council to take action, saying the country was 'alarmed by credible report[s] that the United States … may be joining this war'. Israel's UN ambassador, Danny Danon, pledged at the UNSC that there would be no letup in attacks on Iran. 'Not until Iran's nuclear threat is dismantled, not until its war machine is disarmed, not until our people and yours are safe,' he said. Russia's envoy Vassily Nebenzia stressed that Israel attacked Iran on the eve of a round of nuclear talks and accused Israel of showing a blatant disregard for attempts to find a diplomatic solution to end the conflict. Iraq's representative to the UN, Abbas Kadhom Obaid al-Fatlawi, said 50 Israeli warplanes from the Syrian-Jordanian border areas violated Iraqi airspace shortly before the Security Council meeting. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi attended a meeting in Geneva with France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union's foreign policy chief, which appeared to yield no breakthrough. Araghchi told reporters in Geneva that Iran would be ready to consider diplomacy 'once the aggression is stopped and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes committed'. Earlier, he accused Israel of a 'betrayal of diplomacy' in a speech to the UN Human Rights Council. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told reporters after the Geneva talks that Araghchi had signalled 'his willingness to continue these discussions on the nuclear programme and, more broadly, on all issues'. British Foreign Minister David Lammy said European ministers in Geneva had made it clear that 'Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon'. Germany's Defence Ministry said that it had flown 64 people out of Israel, describing the flights as a 'diplomatic pick-up' and not a military evacuation mission, which would have required parliamentary approval. Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Harris announced his country would temporarily relocate embassy personnel from Tehran 'in light of the deteriorating situation'. The UK said it was temporarily withdrawing staff from its embassy in Iran, saying the embassy continued to 'operate remotely'. Switzerland's Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said it had decided to temporarily close its embassy in Iran, citing intense military operations there. Australia also said it had suspended operations at its embassy in Iran. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said a 'crisis response team' was being sent to neighbouring Azerbaijan to support Australians departing Iran by road. Slovakia and the Czech Republic also announced the temporary closure of their embassies in Tehran. British police arrested eight men on Friday, including seven on suspicion of grievous bodily harm, following reports of an altercation involving pro and anti-Iranian protesters at a location close to the Iranian embassy in London.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
Israeli building hit in wave of drone attacks: rescue services
Israel's rescue services said Saturday that an Iranian drone had struck a residential building in the north of the country following a wave of attacks reported by the military. "A drone strike hit a two-storey residential building in northern Israel", the Magen David Adom said in a statement, referring to an impact site in the Beit She'an valley by the northeastern border with Jordan. Israel's sophisticated air defences have intercepted more than 450 missiles fired at the country by Iran, along with around 400 drones, since the start of the war on June 13, according to official figures. The locations of strikes in Israel are subject to strict military censorship rules and are not always provided in detail to the public. The National Public Diplomacy Directorate, which is overseen by Israel's prime minister, has acknowleged 50 impact sites. At least 19 people were injured in Haifa on Friday following a strike on a building by the city's docks. The northern Israeli port has been frequently targeted along with coastal hub Tel Aviv and southern Beersheba. AFP photographs from the scene of the drone strike in Beit She'an on Saturday showed a hole torn in the side of the building next to a crater and mounds of earth that appeared to have been thrown up by the drone's explosives. Magen David Adom said its rescue teams found no visible casualties as they arrived at the scene. In separate statements, the Israeli military reported several drones had been sighted and intercepted at locations in northern Israel mid-morning on Saturday after a barrage of 40 drones overnight. A total of 25 people have been killed in Israel since the start of the war, according to official figures. lba-adp/dcp
